BETHEL -- As part of a statewide push to make Connecticut more welcoming to electric vehicles, the second of two charging stations will soon be on the grid in downtown Bethel.

"Our town is looking to the future," said Bethel First Selectman Matt Knickerbocker. "We're doing our part not only to decrease the carbon footprint, but to save people money."

The Metro-North train station on Durant Avenue is already home to the town's first active charging station, which came online last week.

A second charging station, located in the municipal lot behind the former train station downtown, will be completed within two weeks, bringing the state's total online charging station tally to 143, with 52 to be located in Fairfield County and six in Litchfield County.

Danbury has six stations, including three at Western Connecticut State University. There are three in Ridgefield and one in New Milford.

Completion of Bethel's second station was delayed due to work done recently on the nearby Metro-North crossing on Greenwood Avenue.

"They had to wait for Metro-North to finish that whole reconstruction of the intersection to drop in the power line," Knickerbocker said.

The stations come as part of the EVConnecticut program, a partnership between the state Department of Transportation and the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, which has distributed roughly $216,000 in grants.

The money came from a settlement agreement with the state allowing for the merger of Northeast Utilities and NStar.

In April, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced that Connecticut is now considered "range confident," meaning drivers of electric vehicles can trust there will be an accessible charging station along their route.

At that time, Malloy said more than 90 percent of state residents now live within 20 miles of a publicly accessible charging station.

To the owner of Bruce Bennett Nissan in Wilton, that makes all the difference.

"Absolutely, it is helping us," Bennett said of the uptick in charging stations. "People want to drive the electric cars, there's no question about it. It's the 100-mile range that has them concerned."

As more and more charging stations pop up across the state -- several of which Bennett has himself brought in to the Danbury area -- consumers' fears of breaking down with a dead battery have subsided while sales of Nissan's Leaf have picked up for Bennett.

"I'm selling three to five a month," he said. "So I'm selling the car."

Bennett said when he first stocked the Leaf in 2011 he had hopes of selling closer to 10 every month. He had heard about dealers in Texas and California selling up to 25 monthly and thought the "green-friendly" population in Fairfield County could at least bring half the business seen in the vehicle's largest markets.

"I was really surprised when that did not happen," he said. "I couldn't give the car away."

But after installing a few stations around the area himself -- notably, one at the Danbury municipal garage and another by the Ridgefield Playhouse -- and seeing the state's EVConnecticut stations pop up as well, the concept started to click.

"They're popping up all over the place right now," Bennett said. "Now I have a lot of interest in the car."

In Bethel, the town used $14,000 of the EVConnecticut grant money to establish two charging stations, each of which can accommodate two vehicles at a time. They have signs limiting parking in the spaces to electric vehicles.

The town purchased the stations from a Maryland company called SemaConnect. Drivers can connect to the charging stations via a smartphone app that allows them to remotely monitor how much electricity they have purchased and how fully their car is charged.

The charging stations in Bethel will be free for drivers for a while, Knickerbocker said, with the energy paid for by the remainder of grant funding issued to the town. Once that period ends, drivers will pay by credit card.